Mr Fenty on Look North

Quoted from MeanwoodMariner

I think there will be at least 4 conference rooms.

Quoted from ska face

This bloke is absolutely killing me, I can't take it anymore.

I don't want to be overly critical, but this post might sound like I am being - so if you're one of those who won't hear a bad word said against him, then just stop reading now.


The problem here, and pretty much throughout this entire process, is that I'm yet to hear a single, quality, succinct statement on how this development will benefit the community. That's coming from someone who is on this board almost daily, follows the club religiously, reads & listens to almost everything that comes out of the club - so how the frig is Joe Bloggs going to know why they should support a new development? I know the club haven't decided on specifics yet, but again we keep hearing this "community" term bandied about without any explanation on how this will benefit the community. It's pretty basic.

The Look North piece was probably the biggest & best opportunity the club had to showcase the benefits of the development to hundreds of thousands of people. What happened? Fenty allowed, and pretty much encouraged, it to become a "discussion" (read "massive whinge") about his funding of the club and the possible negative implications of the development not going ahead. This bloke's supposed to be a politician, is he not? How the intercourse has he allowed that to happen? Now, I don't think anyone's expecting him to have delivered a performance straight from the Alastair Campbell school of spin, but Peter Levy is hardly Jeremy Paxman - would it really have been so difficult to...I dunno.... not let an interview designed to promote a development descend into a argument about how copulated we're going to be if/when everything goes to excrement and he is forced to leave?

The whole campaign is being run from the wrong angle, seemingly. Almost everything I've seen has been Fenty/the club pitting objectors / complainers / NIMBYs / etc. against the club's supporters, in some kind of fire-fighting excercise where people are expected pick through objections point-by-point and argue the case for the club. The YouTube video posted above demonstrates this perfectly. The entire issue is being framed as a problem, and the club are allowing this to continue by engaging objectors on their terms. There is a real need to reframe the issue as a positive for the community (by demonstrating some benefit, as mentioned above) and engage with people through a more positive context. Again, it's fairly basic stuff that anyone who works in PR/Comms would be able to help with & make a positive impact with in a matter of minutes, but we're content in sending out a man whose name is mud even with the people who have the most reason to like him!

There's a popular phrase used throughout politics - "if you're explaining, you're losing". That's what the club doing at the minute, and they're losing badly. You know why De Freitas and others are able to get away with the statements they're putting out in leaflets & promo material? It's because they've been able to build on the strength of (certain) public opinion & tap into the fears and concerns of the local population using a small number of statements and comments that, though not 100% accurate, mean a lot to people. It's all well & good saying that the development will be 850m away from the hospice, or 400m from the crem, but people would be less arsed about that if they had some sort of idea about how the stadium would benefit them directly. Change the general view of the development and you'll not only spend less time fighting a battle in enemy territory, you'll also put more strength behind the statements that you do make when addressing specific issues (such as transporting fans from the station).

Quoted from psgmariner

I still don't understand the maths.

We sell Blundell Park and get what £500k or £1 million at best.

The new Rotherham stadium cost £20 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stadium). Surely ours will cost less than this so let's be generous and say £10 million.

How does this result in Fenty getting his money back and GTFC cementing its long term financial future.

Before anyone says it you don't make a million quid a year out of a couple of conference rooms.

Quoted from biggles9999

I think that the suggestion is that if we have a new stadium then we are more attractive to investors and therefore somebody will buy out John (and his loans).

Quoted from Marinerz93

Your post above for me is 100% correct.

Defritarse has out manoeuvred, out thought and out done JF at every opportunity.  JF's response is a poor attempt that will only add fuel to those against it.  His claim that he is a martyr not only insults Town fans but gives more fuel for those who want him out. That or he is engineering a way out, either way it is negative.

If Fenty wants to mirror what they have done at Scunny he needs to employ a dynamic Chairman likes theirs who makes things happen because very time Fenty opens his mouth we take two steps back.

There are plenty of poster boards around Town, use them to promote then move to a new ground.
There are plenty of media outlets the club could pay for air time.
The lads who have produced some great videos could do another one and try and get it to go viral like the LJL one did.
Lampoon Fritarse as someone who has been to loads of Town games also that he isn't even from Grimsby and he is trying to stop Grimsby moving into a new era.

These are just some of the examples of how the club could be proactive and it only took me a few minutes.  Fenty needs to grab his balderdash and take the fight to defritarse rather than bitching that he has to put his hands in his pockets, after all it's his guidance that brought us here.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Sorry to disagree Mariners but those are minor and juvenile compared to the real problems. It does not matter if you covered every empty shop and billboard with pro-Town posters or took out ads on ITV. Scunthorpe is a false example. They did not use "community" as a selling point. It was a pure commercial activity on both the Glanford Park and the new site. Nothing to do with having a gobby chairman either. You have got to see past the DeFreitas crap and see that the Parkway business is a hell of a lot more serious than that. There are millions of pounds involved and a lot of the arguing is really about whose pocket that should finish up in. That's all behind the scenes, the other stuff is just a blind to keep the fans and message boards busy.

Quoted from psgmariner

I don't follow that logic as the level of debt would surely have risen. It's going to cost at least £10 million to build a new ground isn't it? Selling BP will release nowhere near that and not all the costs will be covered by grants etc.

Quoted from Southwark Mariner

I think their grand strategy is to get the construction of the ground subsidised by huge amounts of housing and some sort of retail development. Why housing developers would have to go through GTFC to build, I don't lknow, and why should the club benefit financially rather than Grimsby? If someone could explain please.

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http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.....52-detail/story.html